Driver education making inroads work-related deaths and injuries drop dramatically
According to the latest statistics from the Department of Transport, revealed during Parliamentary Questions this week, those killed and injured whilst driving for work purposes have dropped dramatically in the past five years. In 2005 168 drivers or riders were killed whilst at work but the figure for 2009 (the latest year available) has plummeted to 95, a decrease of some 44%.
This significant and welcome reduction is in no small part due to the work of the specialist training organisations, the largest of which is AA DriveTech. As a result the work it does for hundreds of commercial fleets and 39 separate driver education programmes for motoring offenders, many of whom were at work at the time of the offence being committed, over 300,000 road users have benefitted from AA DriveTech courses in the past two years. In fact nearly 14% of all UK occupational drivers have now received some form of behaviour-changing educational input from DriveTech since 2003.
“It is very rewarding to play such an important part in turning the tide of occupational driving-related deaths and injuries” says AA DriveTech’s Fleet Director, Paul Holmes. “There is still a lot of work to do but companies are increasingly realising the true cost of an employee being involved in a collision. It’s not just the direct, ‘bent metal’ costs of the crash but the potentially negative effect that the aftermath of the crash can have on employee productivity and well-being.
“We are increasingly being asked to provide specialist post-collision training, where the employee experiences a behavioural change that has a negative influence on both their work and home life. Although the training helps overcome many concerns associated with the crash, in truth many of these drivers will never be the same again.
“It is far better to have systems, policies and interventions in place to prevent the incidents happening in the first place,” concludes Mr Holmes.
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